And now

I knew it had been a while since I posted anything here, but a bit surprised to see just how long! I mentioned to a few people that I would post photos while I was in Japan, and download the relevant software to my phone, but it's useless. Time to check if the old email to blog post system works.

This year will not win any prizes for root veg. One radish, zero beetroot, and a handful of the tiniest carrots ever.

Spring has sprung

Fingers crossed that the weather stays warm, as I spent the day out on the balcony putting seedlings into pots, moving the larger edamame bean and mini Japanese pumpkin plants into their big pots, and generally generating more plants after giving a pile of them away last week.

Here was my collection before Easter, with the rapidly growing mini pumpkins and the rather leggy edamame.

My wonderful greenhouse/cold frame!

I visited a different garden centre that I'd seen out the window of a bus and was amazed to find persimmon trees!

I was very, very tempted, but I've seen how big these grow. We saw ones about two stories high in Japan. I only have a balcony...

There were plenty of plants coming into bloom, especially almond trees and other fruit trees - cherries just budding.

I think this was a nectarine.

Cherry just starting to flower.

Found in the herb section - absinthe! I found one of my favourite plants, the chocolate mint here too. It was tiny and scruffy but has grown phenomenally in the past few weeks - don't think I've ever had a healthier plant.

Huge almond blossoms.

Next to just as huge catkins.

 

Attracting equally huge bumblebees!

The chocolate and cake shops, like Sprungli, were having a field day with bunny-themed items for Easter.

Picked up these in another garden centre on the way back - how could I resist something called "Nemesia" and "Elfenspiegel" that's supposed to smell like coconut?

I think you'll find that ladies and gentlemen have roughly the same proteins...

The greenhouse last week, complete with custom shelf and divider hand-made by David!

The now very large edamame and mini pumpkin seedlings before about half were given away. The shiso has finally started to come up as well, I had almost given up on it.

I gave away lots of cherry tomato seedlings too. Only two yellow ones survived, but I have lots of black and red ones.

And I may have acquired a cherry tree to go with the maple.

After a wonderful Moroccan dinner with a friend, we went to the new Hiltl vegetarian restaurant near the main station - complete with the old post office counter and an airline departure display.

Whoever does the flowers in Stadt Dietlikon does a stellar job. They're always beautiful. 

Another beautiful cherry tree down in the big out-of-town shopping area, a kojo-no-mai type with the blossoms hanging from stems in big bunches.

A passion flower plant at the Jumbo garden centre. I talked myself out of buying a plant, but picked up some seeds.

Never mind the EU

Brussels is all about chocolate.

And ageing, epigenetics and the microbiome, which is the official reason why I went there - to attend the presentation of preliminary results from the NU-AGE study. It was wonderful, with far too much information presented in a very short time, and was the first time I've ever trashed my phone battery by taking too many pictures in short succession.

But back to the chocolate! I booked a walking tour on the Wednesday morning as I was travelling back that afternoon. (By train instead of plane due to Brussels Airport still being mostly closed.)

Tributes to the victims of the airport and metro bombings outside the stock exchange.

Cat-themed shop discovered while desperately looking for a power cable or adaptor plug (turns out Belgian sockets are not the same as Swiss ones.)

The beautiful city museum in the gorgeous (and strangely empty) Grand Place.

Meringues. The size of a loaf of bread.

Speculoos!

Someone's been watching Eddie Izard.

I see a lot of mistaken apostrophes, but this is a new one.

Part of the chocolate tour was a workshop where you get to make your own "mendiant" - I'd seen them before, a chocolate base with stuff stuck on it, but never knew they had a name.

Absolutely gorgeous Art Nouveau building, originally a market for English goods and now home to the Musical Instrument Museum.

We picked up our creations at the end of the tour - they almost look professional!

Pimp my eclair.

A lot of reflection off the glass, but basically a chocolate cathedral... this was Planete Chocolat with the second chocolate cathedral I saw that day after the one at Chocopolis.

More chocolate madness, including a carriage on wheels.

A slightly more interesting version of the Mannekin Pis.

And let's not forget that Belgium is the home of the Smurfs (as well as Tintin and many others). There were comic shops everywhere.

More photos to come when I've got through my backlog of Malaga and Zurich Botanical Gardens.

The Heights of Ulm

The Christmas market was centred around a beautiful church. Not sure if it was the highest spire in the world, maybe it's the highest one on a building classed as a church instead of a cathedral or something?

The Sparrows of Ulm

Sadly we weren't around long enough to figure out why sparrows are associated with Ulm, but it had a lovely Christmas market. Bonus points for illustrations of fairy tales we'd never heard of.